EUROPE | ADVOCACY & POLICY | VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN | LGBTQ+
Part I - A Spectre is Haunting Europe: The Rise of Right-Wing Youth
The first of a three-part series into the rise of right-wing youth in Europe.
WORDS BY JOSHUA EDWICKER | EDWICKER@PROXYBYIWI.COM | 4 APRIL 2024
Throughout the majority of political history, the most progressive values have been held by the youth, unburdened by the cynicism borne of experience and hopeful for a better and more socially just society. Whether the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, or the Velvet Revolution which ended communist control in Czechoslovakia in 1989, history is dotted with examples of progressive change and revolution which has germinated in the imaginations of young people.
Europe today paints an entirely different, bleaker, and yet unsurprising picture. Not only are right-wing parties incredibly popular across Europe, but this popularity is increasingly driven by younger voters, previously seen as bastions of left-wing political parties. In Spain, right-wing political party Vox has exploded in popularity from 2018, with a polling peak in 2022 of 20%, with support growing fastest from those aged 18–24. Vox is quick to target Islam, LGBTQ+ groups and feminism in many of the videos they post to TikTok, Instagram and X.
In Holland, right-wing populist Geert Wilders won the Dutch General Election in November 2023 on an anti-Islam mandate. Since his victory, support for his Party for Freedom, has increased from 24% to 33%, a staggering 16% lead on his nearest challenger. The pattern in Spain is repeated with political party Vox, with those under 35 voting more for Wilders than any other age group. Similarly, in Italy, the most popular party amongst the youth is the incumbent right-wing government Brothers of Italy, who are polling at 28%, well clear of their nearest rivals. France is witnessing the same trends, with the right-wing party National Rally, a rebranding of the National Front, leading the polls with 28%.
This pattern is depressingly commonplace across Europe, even in the bastions of liberalism, Scandinavia and Northern Europe. In Germany, the far right-wing group Alternative for Germany is polling in second place at a sizeable 20%. Nine years ago they were Germany’s sixth largest party and polling at 3%. In Sweden, the right-wing populist party the Sweden Democrats are now the second largest party with 23%, compared to 10% a decade ago. In Austria and Belgium, right-wing populist groups continue the trend and lead the polls.
I ask for forgiveness for the deluge of percentages, but I feel it is of vital importance to understand three key things. First, right-wing parties are the most popular parties in many European countries, or a close second. Second, this support is substantial as a proportion of the population, which can not always be the case with the prevalence of proportional voting systems in Europe (which can often have quite low levels of support and still place first or second), however with these right-wing populist parties this is not the case. Third, the strength of these right-wing parties is an incredibly recent phenomenon, with a resurgence over the last 10 years.
It is even more worrying given the age of those who vote for these parties. As voters tend to get more conservative as they age, the biggest question in European politics will be whether the youth are voting for right-wing parties because they are indeed more conservative or, because (as for youth across history) voting acts as a form of rebellion against the society into which they have been born.
So why are the youth of Europe voting for right-wing parties? I believe the answer is a lot simpler than some analysts may have you believe; they are children of the financial crash. Those who have become eligible to vote over the last 10 years were between the ages of 2 and 12 during 2008 financial crash. They have witnessed mass unemployment, parents stressed about mortgage rates, a job market so constricted that ambitions have been unattainable for a whole generation. Most damaging for young people in Europe today is the housing market, with rents rising beyond the pace of wages, and the opportunity to one day own a house is for most a pipe dream, available to previous generations, but not to them.
It is within this context of unmet ambition and economic instability that the right-wing parties have prospered. This begs another question: why – if the populations of Europe were angry with the conditions which enabled a financial disaster driven by capitalism, greed, and under-regulation – did voters swing to the right rather than to the left?